SMEARS ARE WHAT YOU USE WHEN YOU’VE LOST ON FACTS AND REASON: As Policy Shift Looms, Left Smears Campus Due Process Advocates As Rape Apologists.

Ashe Schow:

In addition to meeting families of students ultimately found falsely accused of rape, DeVos is meeting with several groups that insist this guidance has led to more false accusations and a culture on campus that sees anyone accused as guilty until proven innocent. Leftist articles about this meeting describe the groups as “men’s rights” groups.

Slate’s Christina Cauterucci described them as “trolls.” Cauterucci is the same writer who lambasted ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary about the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax because “it’s a bizarre experience to watch a documentary that expects the viewer to root for a bunch of accused rapists.” But by now everyone knows they were falsely accused. Cauterucci wants us to root instead for someone who falsely accused people of a horrible crime.

Only one of the groups meeting with DeVos, the National Coalition for Men, could be considered under the “men’s rights” label. Now, the label is a smear for some, but shouldn’t be. Men do face issues specific to them, such as paternity fraud. They’re also largely ignored when we talk about rape or domestic violence. Trying to advocate for people who are suffering shouldn’t be a smear.

Harry Crouch, the president of NCM, has said some things I don’t agree with, like the widely circulated quote about Ray Rice’s then-fiancée having “aggravated him,” which led to him hitting her. But the articles from Slate, ThinkProgress, Mic, and others also lump in two other groups with the “men’s rights” label. Stop Abusive and Violent Environments do a lot of work on false accusations, which mostly happen to men, but believe in those protections for women as well.

The final group being smeared is Families Advocating for Campus Equality, a group started by mothers of students who have been accused of sexual assault and went through the campus process, finding they were unable to present evidence that proved their innocence. Members of FACE tell me some women have been falsely accused and joined their group.

None of these groups think rape is acceptable. They simply want protections for accused students put in place and for the hysteria surrounding the issue to stop.

Historically, those seeking control over others have often whipped up hysteria in order to get it.

SINGLE PAYER, SINGLE DECIDER: Charlie Gard is given legal permanent residence in US by Congress so ‘he can fly to the States for world class treatment.’ “But legal sources said Charlie is the subject of a High Court order and it made no difference what passport he held.”

IT’S NOT ME; IT’S YOU: Saying goodbye (again) to the GOP.

OF COURSE THEY WILL: The Robots Will Make the Best Fake News.

OH: Turns Out T. Rex Would’ve Broken its Tiny Legs if it Tried to Run.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Navy Unveils World’s First Active Laser Weapon In Persian Gulf.

The LaWS, an acronym for Laser Weapons System, is not science fiction. It is not experimental. It is deployed on board the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship, ready to be fired at targets today and every day by Capt. Christopher Wells and his crew.

It costs “about a dollar a shot” to fire.

UNION REP: Lawmakers Who Oppose Legalizing Ag Workers Should ‘Pick Watermelons.’

ALLIES: Turkey Leaks Secret Locations of U.S. Troops in Syria.

The list published by the Anadolu news agency points to a U.S. presence from one end to the other of the Kurdish self-administration region—a distance of more than 200 miles. The Anadolu news agency even listed the number of U.S. troops in several locations and in two instances stipulated the presence of French special forces.

Turkey has openly criticized the Trump administration—and the Obama administration before it—for relying in the battle against ISIS on a militia led by Kurds affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK. A separatist movement now at war with Turkey, the PKK has been listed by the U.S., EU, and Turkey as a terror organization.

To avoid the appearance of allying with such a group, the U.S. military set up the Syrian Democratic Forces, which have a large component of Arab recruits. But they are led by officers from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian affiliate of the PKK.

Although Turkey’s powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, regularly vents his anger at the U.S., it is still highly unusual for a NATO ally to reveal details of a U.S. military deployment during active operations in a war zone.

Ya think?

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: ISIS Lashes Teenage Boys for Crime of Playing Soccer.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Fifth American War. “The country is coming apart, and the advocates of radical egalitarianism are winning.”

During the Jacksonian Revolution of the 1830s, factions nearly ripped the country apart over whether the East Coast Founders’ establishment of a half-century would relinquish its monopoly of political power to reflect the new demographic realties of an expanding frontier — and its populist champions often deemed unfit for self-governance. For the most part, the Jacksonians won.

Three decades later the nation divided over slavery, prompting the most lethal war in American history to end it and force the defeated Confederate southern states back into the Union.

The Great Depression, and the establishment’s inept responses to it, left a quarter of the country unemployed for nearly a decade — hungry and desperate to expand government even if it entailed curtailing liberty in a way never envisioned by the Founders. The result was eventually the redefinition of freedom as the right of the individual to have his daily needs guaranteed by the state.

In the 1960s, the hippie movement — fueled by furor over the Vietnam War, civil-rights protests, and environmental activism — turned holistic in a fashion rarely seen before. A quarter of the country went “hip,” grooming, dressing, talking, and acting in a way that reflected their disdain for the silent majority of “straight” or “irrelevant” traditional America. The hipsters lost the battle (most eventually cut their hair and outgrew their paisley tops to join the rat race) but won the war — as the universities, media, foundations, Hollywood, arts, and entertainment now echo the values of 1969 rather than those that preceded it.

Read the whole thing.

BLUE CITY BLUES: Urban Institute Cites Segregation for Chicago Income Disparity, Homicide Rate.

Why are Democrat-run cities such cesspits of institutionalized racism?

HOW’S THAT MAJORITY WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? House Republicans to fall back on more modest spending plan.

House GOP leaders are resorting to Plan B on their spending strategy after falling woefully short of the support needed to pass a massive government funding package without Democratic votes.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday night that the House will vote next week on a measure that includes just four of the 12 bills needed to fund the federal government. That decision comes after GOP leaders failed to get enough Republican support to pass the full dozen without the help of their minority-party counterparts.
…
After launching a whipping operation Monday night to gauge interest in voting on the full spate of spending bills, GOP leaders walked away with a tally of dozens of Republican lawmakers who said they couldn’t commit — as well as several hard “no’s” — to voting for the partisan bundle of 12 bills, according to Republican lawmakers and aides.

The survey underscored GOP leadership’s ongoing difficulty in appeasing the party’s most fiscally conservative wing while still holding onto support from moderates, and serves as a reminder that ideological differences within the House Republican conference are likely to force the majority to continue making deals with Democrats to keep the government funded.

This year’s deficit is expected to top $700 billion, and that’s absent a major war or economic downturn.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Clinton Corruption Update for July 18, 2017.

Huh. Turns out the Clinton State Department was up for sale.

COLLUSION: Postal Service broke law by letting employees do Clinton campaign work.

The OSC determined the USPS “engaged in systemic violations” of the Hatch Act, a federal law that limits certain political activities of federal employees.

The investigation was launched months ago after Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., brought constituent complaints to the OSC in October. The constituent, identified as a USPS employee, was concerned the Postal Service “incurred unnecessary overtime costs” and “improperly coordinated” with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) when it released members for several weeks of “union official” leave without pay to participate in campaign work.

“The Labor 2016 program sought to ‘elect Hillary Clinton and pro-worker candidates across the country,’” the report said, citing campaign work like door-to-door canvassing, phone banks and other get-out-the-vote efforts.

The Republican Congress ought to keep this in mind the next time the Post Office asks for more money or a friendly regulation.

LIZ SHELD IS ON THE ROAD: So it’s an abbreviated morning brief, but still loaded with links.

Also, that picture she found of Paul Ryan should probably be turned into a meme.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: ‘All options on table’ for U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.

BUTTINSKY: Girl at lemonade stand threatened by a man who said he’d call police for lack of a business license.

This is the story of a little girl from Discover Bay who set up a lemonade stand on public property.

She just wanted to sell some lemonade and cookies. Her parents told her she could be there for 1 hour.

But as she was setting up she was approached by a man who was all bent out of shape by what she was doing.

(Don’t worry there is a happy ending)

Richard LaRouche is the little girl’s father.

He told me:

“The man just pulled up next to her and asked for her business license and then told her ‘I’m calling the police’ and then got on the phone and began speaking as if he was talking to police.”

“She was so scared that she came home crying and sobbing and said she didn’t want to go to jail.”

The really sad part is that the law is probably on the jerk’s side.

PURPLE STATE BLUES: Small Colorado Town the Epicenter for Anti-Fracking Campaign.

The small suburban enclave of Broomfield, CO has become the epicenter of the national debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Located 13 miles from the campus of the University of Colorado-Boulder, the controversy in Broomfield centers on a recall effort that seeks to unseat the mayor – even though he is term limited and leaves office in November.

The mayor, Greg Stokes, is not a crook or a deviant. He is pro-fracking.

That close to Boulder, that probably makes him a crook and a deviant.

BREAKING: Christian Fighters in Raqqa Report ISIS Using Drones to Drop Bombs.

SO IT’S COME TO THIS: So-Called “Women’s March” Sends Birthday Shoutout to Convicted Cop Killer.

It isn’t a big step up or down to go from Linda Sarsour to Assata Shakur.

WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE? Rex Tillerson: Secretary of State Sabotage?

BUT OF COURSE: Bill Nye Gets Emmy Nod For Song In Un-Scientific ‘Sexual Spectrum’ Episode.

RICK PERRY: We aim for energy domination.

Washington Examiner: Shell is building a cracker plant not far from here. Is that part of the equation of creating an energy hub in this region? Explain what a cracker plant is, because when people who are not from an energy state hear “cracker plants,” they think it’s a plant that makes saltines.

Perry: (laughing) Well, this is cracking those molecules so that you can have different byproducts — ethane, ethylene — that go into the petrochemical industry, and yes, that is adding value. That is creating a hub. If you just took that gas and burned it at a power plant, it’s sort of like cooking your breakfast using $100 bills. It will cook your breakfast, but it’s a pretty expensive way to do it.

But if you take that gas, process it, crack it, send different streams different ways to be used in a lot of valued-added processing, that can happen right here in this region. So, one job becomes 10 jobs. And those are high-value jobs.

The other side of what it does, President Trump’s vision of making America dominant in the energy field — this is exactly what he’s talking about. He doesn’t want us just to be independent. He wants us to be dominant. That means that our allies, wherever they may be in the world, know that there will be a constant stream of these products that they need to develop their countries economically.

All of our allies are very interested in our being able to develop different energy sources, LNG in particular. I mean, this is a game changer.

Putin, OPEC hardest hit.

FLASHBACK: “By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place,” [Hillary Clinton] said.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Indiewire Slams “Sexist” Male Critics for “Beguiled” Pans.

Critics must not deviate from the Party line, comrades.

RON RADOSH: Finally, Conservative Writers Accept the Truth About the Trump Campaign’s Folly.